Yesterday I was trying to work out my reaction to Vlad's latest speech which seems to have had scant coverage in our media. I had more or less come to a conclusion but then this morning my 'postie' delivered my Spectator and, lo, there was an excellent article by a proper expert on Russian affairs, Anne Applebaum. She suggests that Putin is conducting a series of 'experiments' which began in Georgia when the Russian army went in to occupy several provinces and continued when he decided to annex the Crimea followed by a somewhat disguised annexation of eastern Ukraine.
In my opinion, he is 'playing at soldiers'. He fancies himself as a great Russian emperor who can and will apply armed force to his neighbours in order to achieve his aims. The problem is that whilst he seems to have mastered tactics and has an understanding of the operational, he has very little understanding of the higher levels of statecraft - grand strategy and global geo-strategy. And when it comes to the exceedingly complex subject of global market forces, he hasn't a clue!
He has 'strutted his hour upon the stage' to the gushing delight of the Russian suckers people but, alas, just like him and his regime they have absolutely no idea of market forces and their effects. No reason why they shoud, I suppose, given that they have been virtual prisoners for almost their entire history. Their so-called leaders do not understand market operations any better because virtually none of them have ever tried it. They simply stole and plundered on a grand scale the former state-owned enterprises and from which they then bribed and threatened their way to greater wealth which they promptly syphoned off into various illicit cash havens well away from poor old Mother Russia. Vlad more or less turned a blind eye - provided he and his apparatchiks were paid off - not just with money but with votes at each and every election.
When Vlad 'stole' the Crimea - and I should add that in my opinion he had some valid reasons for doing so given the stupidity and arrogance of the Euro-fanatics in Brussels - he might have got away with it because it was obvious at the time that no-one was too keen to slap fierce sanctions on a country as powerful as Russia. But like gamblers everywhere he could not resist pushing his luck, not least because both he and his equally economically illiterate henchmen simply did not undestand the outcome of a serious ratcheting of the sanctions programme which has now taken place. Also, they were hit with a double whammy when the price of oil dropped like a stone to the bottom of their now redundent oil wells:
This week the rouble, which has lost a third of its value in three months, slid by 9 per cent in a single day. A recession is now predicted. Inflation is predicted too, as high as 8 or 9 per cent. A controversial but long-planned pipeline construction has been abruptly cancelled. Major Russian banks are asking for government loans. Russian companies which earn in roubles and borrow in dollars are suddenly in trouble. Capital has been swiftly flowing out of the country, and some banks are rumoured to be limiting withdrawals. There are so many rumours about capital controls that the prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, has explicitly denied them.
Also, tucked away in a mumbled passage at the end of his speech was a plea from Vlad to his oligarchs to repatriate the cash they have stashed abroad and he promised - no, really, really promised, honest, 'on me muvver's eyes' (oops, sorry, that's East London not East Europe!) that he would instruct his tax authorities to ask no questions. Well, that should go down well with the Russian working class as they face higher taxes and poverty - again!
Russia is an economic basket-case and will remain one for as long as it takes for them to understand free enterprise conducted under the open rule of law - so don't hold your breath! However, it is also an enormously powerful military force - not as powerful as they think they are - but the do have a lot of military muscle. So far they have stepped carefully but sooner or later, I suspect, economic and political pressures from the 'Home Front' might cause Vlad, who is not really very bright, to do something silly - and dangerous!
